Editing Features

Fresh brings IDE-level editing features to the terminal with zero configuration. This guide covers all the editing capabilities available out of the box.

Some keybindings may not work or may differ on your system due to differences in keyboard layouts, terminal emulators, and operating systems. If a keybinding doesn’t work, check the command palette (Ctrl+P) for alternative bindings, or see the Keyboard Configuration guide to customize them.

Smart Editing

Fresh includes intelligent editing behaviors that adapt to your code:

Smart Home

The Home key toggles between the first non-whitespace character and column 0, making navigation more efficient.

Smart Backspace

Backspace in leading whitespace removes one indent level instead of a single character.

Auto-indent

Enter preserves the current indentation level. After {, (, or :, an extra indent level is automatically added.

Bracket Matching

Matching brackets are highlighted automatically. Use “Go to Matching Bracket” from the command palette to jump between them.

Bracket matching is enabled by default. You can toggle it via the highlight_matching_brackets setting in your config.

Undo and Redo

Fresh provides robust undo/redo functionality that intelligently handles multi-cursor edits:

Shortcut	Action
`Ctrl+Z`	Undo last change
`Ctrl+Y`	Redo last undone change

Atomic Multi-cursor Operations: All edits made with multiple cursors are treated as a single atomic operation. One undo restores all cursor positions and their changes simultaneously.

Smart Undo Behavior

Fresh’s undo system skips over readonly actions (like cursor movements) and only undos write actions:

Type characters

Type abc in the editor

Move cursor

Move the cursor with arrow keys (readonly action)

Undo

Press Ctrl+Z — this undos both the cursor movement AND the last typed character

This means you never need multiple undo operations to get back to your actual edits.

Multi-Cursor Editing

Edit multiple locations simultaneously with Fresh’s powerful multi-cursor support. This is one of Fresh’s most powerful features, working exactly like VS Code or Sublime Text.

Creating Multiple Cursors

Shortcut	Action
`Ctrl+D`	Add cursor at next occurrence of selection
`Ctrl+Alt+↑`	Add cursor above current position
`Ctrl+Alt+↓`	Add cursor below current position
`Esc`	Remove all secondary cursors

When you press Ctrl+D with no selection, Fresh automatically selects the word under the cursor first, then adds a cursor at the next occurrence.

Multi-Cursor Workflow Example

Select a word

Position your cursor on a variable name like value

Add cursors at matches

Press Ctrl+D repeatedly to add cursors at each occurrence of value

Edit simultaneously

Type to replace all occurrences at once, or use arrow keys to move all cursors together

Clear cursors

Press Esc to return to a single cursor

All multi-cursor edits (typing, deleting, pasting) are atomic — they can be undone with a single Ctrl+Z.

Block Selection

Block selection (also called column selection or rectangular selection) lets you select and edit a rectangular region of text across multiple lines.

Block Selection Controls

Shortcut	Action
`Alt+Shift+↑`	Extend block selection upward
`Alt+Shift+↓`	Extend block selection downward
`Alt+Shift+←`	Extend block selection left
`Alt+Shift+→`	Extend block selection right
`Esc`	Clear block selection

How Block Selection Works

Start selection

Position your cursor where you want to start the block

Create rectangular region

Press Alt+Shift+↓ to extend down and Alt+Shift+→ to extend right, creating a rectangular selection

Edit or copy

Type to replace the block, or Ctrl+C to copy only the rectangular region

Converting to Multi-Cursor: When you type or perform an editing action with a block selection, Fresh automatically converts it to multiple cursors — one for each line in the block. This gives you the power of multi-cursor editing with the precision of rectangular selection.

Selection Commands

Fresh provides powerful selection commands for quickly selecting text:

Shortcut	Action
`Ctrl+W`	Select word under cursor
`Ctrl+L`	Select current line
`Ctrl+A`	Select all text in buffer
`Shift+Arrow`	Extend selection by character
`Ctrl+Shift+←/→`	Select word left/right
`Shift+Home/End`	Select to line start/end
`Ctrl+Shift+Home/End`	Select to document start/end
`Shift+PgUp/PgDn`	Select page up/down

Basic Editing Operations

Clipboard Operations

Shortcut	Action
`Ctrl+C`	Copy selection
`Ctrl+X`	Cut selection
`Ctrl+V`	Paste from clipboard

With block selections, Ctrl+C copies only the rectangular region, not the entire lines.

Deletion

Shortcut	Action
`Backspace`	Delete character backward
`Del`	Delete character forward
`Ctrl+Backspace`	Delete word backward
`Ctrl+Del`	Delete word forward
`Ctrl+K`	Delete from cursor to end of line

Ctrl+K works like Emacs/Bash — it deletes from the cursor position to the end of the line.

Indentation

Shortcut	Action
`Tab`	Indent selection or insert tab
`Shift+Tab`	Dedent selection

Code Comments

Shortcut	Action
`Ctrl+/`	Toggle line comment (works with multi-cursor)

The comment syntax is automatically detected from the file type. Works with C-style //, Python #, and more.

Other Editing

Shortcut	Action
`Ctrl+T`	Transpose characters (swap character before and after cursor)

Text Transformation

Transform selected text with these commands (available from the command palette):

Case Conversion

Alt+U — Convert selection to UPPERCASE
Alt+L — Convert selection to lowercase

Line Operations

Sort Lines — Sort selected lines alphabetically
Trim Trailing Whitespace — Remove trailing spaces from all lines

Automatic Cleanup on Save

You can configure Fresh to automatically clean up files when saving:

config.json

{
  "trim_trailing_whitespace_on_save": true,
  "ensure_final_newline_on_save": true
}

Code Folding

Collapse and expand code blocks to focus on what matters:

Enable LSP

Code folding requires an LSP server that supports foldingRange. See LSP Configuration.

Click gutter indicator

Click the fold indicator in the gutter to collapse a code block

Expand

Click again to expand, or use “Toggle Fold” from the command palette

Navigation (up/down arrows) automatically skips over folded regions
Each split view maintains its own independent fold state

Vertical Rulers

Add visual column guides to enforce line length limits:

Add ruler

Open the command palette (Ctrl+P) and search for “Add Ruler”

Enter column

Enter the column number (e.g., 80 or 120)

Remove ruler

Use “Remove Ruler” from the command palette

Rulers are per-buffer. You can also set default rulers in your config:

config.json

{
  "rulers": [80, 120]
}

Auto-Save

Fresh supports two types of auto-save:

User Auto-Save
Crash Recovery

Enable automatic saving at regular intervals:

config.json

{
  "auto_save_enabled": true,
  "auto_save_interval": 30  // seconds
}

Default interval is 30 seconds.

Keyboard Macros

Record and replay sequences of keystrokes to automate repetitive tasks:

Shortcut	Action
`F5`	Stop macro recording
`F4`	Play last recorded macro

Using Macros

Start recording

Open command palette (Ctrl+P) and search for “Record Macro”. Enter a register name (0-9).

Perform actions

Execute the keystrokes you want to record (typing, navigation, editing, etc.)

Stop recording

Press F5 or use “Stop Recording” from the command palette

Play back

Press F4 to replay the last macro, or use “Play Macro” to choose a specific register

Custom Macro Keybindings

Bind specific keys to play macros automatically:

config.json

{
  "keybindings": [
    {
      "key": "!",
      "modifiers": ["alt"],
      "action": "play_macro",
      "args": {"char": "1"},
      "when": "normal"
    },
    {
      "key": "@",
      "modifiers": ["alt"],
      "action": "play_macro",
      "args": {"char": "2"},
      "when": "normal"
    }
  ]
}

This binds Alt+Shift+1 to play macro 1 and Alt+Shift+2 to play macro 2.

Shell Integration

Run shell commands on your buffer or selection:

Shortcut	Action
`Alt+\|`	Run shell command on buffer/selection (output shown)
`Alt+Shift+\|`	Run shell command and replace selection with output

Examples

# Select lines, then Alt+Shift+|
sort

Markdown Editing

Smart editing features for Markdown files (provided by the built-in markdown_source plugin):

List Continuation

Pressing Enter on a list item automatically continues the list with the same marker (bullets, numbers, checkboxes)

Smart List Removal

Pressing Enter on an empty list marker removes it

List Indentation

Tab indents list items and cycles through bullet styles (-, *, +)

Quote Handling

Single-quote auto-close is disabled so apostrophes don’t interfere with typing

Compose Mode (Experimental)

Enable distraction-free Markdown writing:

Enable compose

Open command palette and search for “Markdown: Toggle Compose”

Enjoy clean view

Markup like **, *, []() is concealed, soft line breaks are applied, and tables are rendered

Adjust width

Use “Markdown: Set Compose Width” to change the text width

Side-by-side view

Open the same file in a vertical split to see source and composed views simultaneously

Multi-Cursor Guide

Detailed multi-cursor editing workflows

Search & Replace

Find and replace text in files

Navigation

Moving around your codebase

Getting Started

Core Features

Configuration

Advanced Features

Plugins

Reference

​Smart Editing

Smart Home

Smart Backspace

Auto-indent

Bracket Matching

​Undo and Redo

​Smart Undo Behavior

​Multi-Cursor Editing

​Creating Multiple Cursors

​Multi-Cursor Workflow Example

​Block Selection

​Block Selection Controls

​How Block Selection Works

​Selection Commands

​Basic Editing Operations

​Clipboard Operations

​Deletion

​Indentation

​Code Comments

​Other Editing

​Text Transformation

Case Conversion

Line Operations

​Automatic Cleanup on Save

​Code Folding

​Vertical Rulers

​Auto-Save

​Keyboard Macros

​Using Macros

​Custom Macro Keybindings

​Shell Integration

​Examples

​Markdown Editing

List Continuation

Smart List Removal

List Indentation

Quote Handling

​Compose Mode (Experimental)

​Related Documentation

Multi-Cursor Guide

Search & Replace

Navigation

Build docs developers (and LLMs) love

Smart Editing

Undo and Redo

Smart Undo Behavior

Multi-Cursor Editing

Creating Multiple Cursors

Multi-Cursor Workflow Example

Block Selection

Block Selection Controls

How Block Selection Works

Selection Commands

Basic Editing Operations

Clipboard Operations

Deletion

Indentation

Code Comments

Other Editing

Text Transformation

Automatic Cleanup on Save

Code Folding

Vertical Rulers

Auto-Save

Keyboard Macros

Using Macros

Custom Macro Keybindings

Shell Integration

Examples

Markdown Editing

Compose Mode (Experimental)

Related Documentation